The technical field is integrated circuits, and more particularly attachment implementations used to attach components, such as heat sinks, to printed circuit boards.
Current integrated circuit packages are assembled by attaching one or more processors to a printed circuit board or substrate. Assembly may be by soldering electrical components of the processor to the circuit board. Current soldering methods include solder balls placed between the processors and the substrate. More recently, solder columns have been used to attach the processors to the substrate. Other components, such as heat sinks, are then attached to the integrated circuit. Some of these other components are attached using mechanical means. Such mechanical attachments may over stress the solder balls and solder columns, leading to premature failure of the integrated circuit.
The mechanical attachment mechanisms that are used for installation of components onto the substrate may take the form of screws, bolts, or studs that arc seated in the substrate, and then turned to operate a metal plate. Turning the screw causes the metal plate to move in a direction along the axis of the screw, compressing the components onto the substrate. However, use of screws and similar devices has many drawbacks. In particular, the application of torque may be highly variable when one human operator turns the screw through more turns than would another human operator. Next, these systems for loading components are complex, require specific tools, take up valuable space in the integrated circuit, and produce metal contamination of the integrated circuit.
What is disclosed is an attachment implementation for attaching a replaceable component to an integrated circuit. The integrated circuit includes a processor electrically coupled to a circuit board using solder columns. The attachment implementation includes a top plate, leaf springs in contact with the top plate, a leaf spring cradle that carries the leaf springs, with the cradle including upper projections that project through corresponding slots in the top plate, a pin inserted through openings in the upper projections, and a linear slide cam located on an upper surface of the top plate between the upper projections and further located below the pin. The cam has a flat bottom in communication with the upper surface of the top plate. The cam includes a saddle and a valley. The cam operates in a first position with the pin engaged in the valley to apply a spring force to securely hold the replaceable component to the integrated circuit.
Also what is disclosed is an integrated circuit attachment apparatus that includes a replaceable component and a mechanism for inserting and securely holding the replaceable component in the integrated circuit package. The mechanism includes a top plate, leaf springs in contact with the top plate, a leaf spring cradle that carries the leaf springs, with the cradle including upper projections that project through corresponding slots in the top plate, a pin inserted through openings in the upper projections, and a linear slide cam located on an upper surface of the top plate between the upper projections and further located below the pin. The cam operates in a first position to securely hold the replaceable component to the integrated circuit and a second position to allow placement of the replaceable component on the integrated circuit.
Finally, what is disclosed is a device to allow repeatable application of a seating force to seat a component in a circuit. The device includes a top plate having slots and holes, a leaf spring cradle that projects through the slots and that includes holes for receiving a pin, leaf springs that are carried by the cradle, with a top leaf spring contacting an underside of the top plate, and where a spring force moves the cradle away from the top plate, and a linear slide cam that contacts the pin and a top surface of the top plate. The cam includes a first surface that contacts the pin to compress the leaf springs, and a second surface that contacts the pin to decompress the leaf springs. When the leaf springs are decompressed, the spring force is transferred to the component to securely hold the component at the required load.